Learning A Foreign Language: When Good Resolutions Fall By The Wayside

Posted on 08. Jul, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Relocation
7 comments

So, you’ve decided that you were going to do the smart thing and learn the language of the country you’re moving to. Congratulations! Even a fairly basic command of the language will open many doors and make the adjustment period much easier.

You’ve bought a great “Spanish in 57 easy lessons” CD-Rom, or maybe you’ve signed up for German classes at your local Goethe-Institut. You’ve equipped yourself with a stack of flash cards and a good dose of determination.

And then… nothing much happens. Life gets in the way. You’re too busy and preoccupied with the impending move. The CD-Rom sits on your desk collecting dust, or you start skipping one German class, then another… before you know it, your motivation is gone, you’re not making any progress and you’re beating yourself up.

Good resolutions alone won’t get the work done

We’ve all been there. Learning a new language can trigger huge amounts of procrastination, even in non-procrastinators. Kind of like writing thank-you notes, only worse.

That’s not because learning a foreign language is fundamentally boring – some crazy people like myself actually enjoy it so much that it becomes a hobby.

No, the thing is that the procrastination does not have anything to do with external circumstances – your schedule, how much time it takes, or the availability of good teachers. It has to do with internal resistance.

Learning a foreign language is a huge trigger

When you start learning a new language, it is a given that you are going to make some mistakes and, at times, sound like a not particularly bright 5-year old. If you come from a culture where excellence, mastery or saving face is highly valued, that can be hard to accept.

So you don’t even try – better not getting started at all, or giving up in the early stages, than having to face the fact that it’s not going to be perfect, right?

But the perfectionism and the impossibly high standards are only part of the problem. You also have to factor in embarrassment: “What will people think when I can’t even introduce myself without making mistakes?”

And then of course, there’s the guilt and the resentment: “Why can’t I learn this thing already? What’s wrong with me? And why did we commit to this stupid move to begin with?!?”

Wow. When so many negative feelings get all tangled up in a big, heavy emotional mess, it’s no wonder that you push the CD-Rom to the side of your desk, until it gets buried under a pile of paperwork and magazines. Out of sight, out of mind. It’s less painful that way.

Gasp. So what can we do?

First of all, don’t despair, and for the love of little green apples, don’t beat yourself up. Once you realise that the barriers to learning a foreign language are mostly emotional, it becomes much easier to get out of your own way.

And it’s completely legitimate and normal to have your emotions triggered in such a way. Learning a new language is a big commitment, and that can be scary. Nothing to be ashamed of.

In the next post, I will give you a few pointers to help you disentangle some of the emotional mess – gently and progressively. Fighting with yourself and forcing yourself to study is only going to create more resistance, but clarity and a softer approach may just be the solution.

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Emmanuelle

Image by Jennerally (top) and banlon1964 (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons